Determination of rutting performance of asphalt pavements considering realistic tire-pavement contact area

In the conventional pavement design procedure using multilayer elastic theory, tire loading equal to tire inflation pressure and traditional circular contact area are assumed. Therefore, the area of contact is extremely overestimated and the contact stress is significantly underestimated. Rotary Compactor and Wheel Tracker (RCWT) equipment was designed and fabricated with three different functionalities. The RCWT captures the realistic contact areas of pneumatic tires, simulates the field compaction process, and conducts simulative laboratory wheel tracking test. This study was conducted to determine relative damage of realistic tire-pavement contact area with respect to the traditional contact area. Based on the obtained footprint results, 63 percent difference exists between traditional and effective contact areas. Furthermore, it was found that based on the thickness of asphalt layer, vehicle tire was 2.5 to 1.5 times more damaging than full circular contact area. Moreover, realistic contact area causes about 50 percent reduction in pavement operational life.